


Age of Innocence

by laniew1



Category: Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-21
Updated: 2008-03-21
Packaged: 2018-04-07 15:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4268484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laniew1/pseuds/laniew1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It felt like they were forever waiting on Ryan. Waiting for his words and his music and sometimes even his presence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Age of Innocence

**Author's Note:**

> Archiving some stuff off my LJ

**The Age of Innocence**

 

It felt like they were forever waiting on Ryan. Waiting for his words and his music and sometimes even his presence.

Like now, when they’d scheduled to meet at 9 am and Ryan had agreed, sullen and quiet. Still angry about the group meeting that Pete had phoned in for where they took him to task for new tattoos and pictures that were forcing them to answer awkward questions.

Spencer glances at his watch again and Brendon can feel his foot start tapping under the table. It stops after a few seconds, stilled most likely by Jon’s hand coming to rest on his knee.

“Should we call again?” Brendon asks, he has his cellphone out, ready and Spencer shakes his head.

A personal visit then and Brendon feels that ache. The one that he’d felt when they’d made the decision to ask Brent to leave the group.

He doesn’t want to have to ask Ryan to leave.

And it’s not just because they won’t have any words, they’ll still come up with the words, it’s because he doesn’t think he can do this without Ryan.

They take Jon’s rental car. A practical sedan and Brendon presses his forehead to the glass and closes his eyes. Breathes in and out.

Jon and Spencer are talking in the front seat, voices a quiet hum and he could hear them if he concentrated but right now Ryan is taking up the majority of his brain space.

Ryan’s car is parked in front of his apartment complex.

Jon parks next to it, they sit there for a second and then Spencer takes a deep breath and opens the door.

It’s not the same as Brent, it’s _not_.

They’re quiet on the way up to the apartment, Spencer has a key and he doesn’t knock when they get to it. Just puts the key in and opens the door.

It’s quiet, the TV isn’t on, no radio playing softly. No noise at all and Brendon feels a shiver of something down his back.

He’s not in the living room, though Brendon can see where he’d curled up on the couch. His bedroom door is partially shut; Brendon doesn’t say a word when he sees Spencer’s hand shake when he pushes it open.

There’s a hump in the center of the bed, they all stand there waiting to see movement and Brendon breathes a tiny sigh of relief when he sees the hump shift and hears the quiet whistle.

Spencer’s shoulders slump, then straighten. He takes the three steps to the bed and pulls the covers back and stops. Covers still hanging from his fingers and Brendon’s eyes widen and Jon takes a step backward.

In the center of the bed is a small, dark-haired, tousle-headed boy. Curled up in a ball with a fist pressed against his cheek. He’s blinking sleepily up at Spencer and Brendon can see the second where he figures out that he doesn’t know them.

His eyes widen and he screams bloody murder.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Jon is the one who calms the boy down, gets him to stop screaming before Ryan’s neighbors call the cops.

Right now he’s curled up in Jon’s arms, sniffling, watching Spencer and Brendon warily.

“Maybe we should start looking for Ryan?” Brendon asks. They’re missing a bandmate, instead they’ve got a boy who looks to be around eight, though maybe he’s younger because he’s really, _really_ tiny, he’s wearing clothes way too big for him. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that two things are probably related.

The boy looks over at him with an expression so familiar on his face that Brendon wonders if when they find Ryan if they should be asking him if he got some poor girl pregnant when he was twelve.

Spencer makes a sound next to him, Brendon wonders if they should start worrying that apparently Spencer has gone mute and/or swallowed his tongue.

The boy turns and stares at them, blinking at them carefully.

“My name is Ryan.”

 

******************************************************************************

 

Brendon is still coughing and the boy is staring at him like he’s the most fascinating thing ever.

Jon’s finally managed to get his mouth closed and Spencer has his face buried in his hands, his shoulders are shaking and Brendon can’t tell if he’s laughing or crying.

“What’s your name?” Jon asks. Slowly, carefully.

Things like this don’t happen to normal people but better Ryan be de-aged by mysterious means then Ryan be charged with kidnapping an eight year-old with the same name as him when they find him.

“Ryan,” the boy says again. He even sounds like Ryan. His voice carefully even, bored. It’s even slightly monotone, albeit in a higher pitch. It’s eerie.

“Your _full_ name,” Jon prompts. The boy huffs and crosses his little arms over his little chest. Brendon doesn’t know why it took him so long to realize that they boy is wearing Ryan’s t-shirt and sleep pants.

But this _can’t_ be Ryan because things like this _don’t happen_ except on TV.

Spencer is laughing, Brendon realizes suddenly. He can tell because he’s making the half-snort, giggle sound that he makes when he’s totally and completely lost it.

“George Ryan Ross,” he says finally. “But I don’t like George.”

 

******************************************************************************

 

Ryan is curled up on the couch, blanket over him, watching cartoons on the TV with avid fascination.

“Pete?” Jon asks and Brendon makes a face. He doesn’t want to call Pete, but weird shit happens to Pete all the time, he’d most likely know how to deal with this. Or fix this before they have to go on tour with an eight-year-old version of Ryan Ross that doesn’t know them.

When Spencer had introduced himself he smiled at him and said “my best friends name is Spencer,” Spencer had disappeared into the bathroom and when he’d come out his eyes had been red and swollen.

“We can’t leave him here alone,” Brendon says, when he looks over Ryan is looking at them. He looks scared.

“Are you taking me back to my dad now?” he asks. He sounds so like Ryan, that same monotone in a childlike pitch, but the same intonation to all his words.

Spencer shakes his head and an expression that looks like relief crosses so quickly over Ryan’s face that Brendon has to wonder at what age Ryan’s dad had started raising his fists to his son. From the way that Ryan had always talked he thought it had started somewhere in Ryan’s teens, but the way this eight-year-old version of him is acting Brendon thinks it might have started much sooner.

“Have you ever stayed in a hotel?” Jon asks and Ryan shakes his head, dislodging the blankets that he had pulled tighter around himself at the thought that they were taking him back to his dad.

“Well they have a swimming pool and a bed with ceiling high enough that you can jump on it.”

Jon grins and Ryan grins a smaller grin back at him.

Spencer shakes his head.

“Don’t be teaching him any bad habits Jon Walker,” he chides. Jon laughs at him and plucks Ryan off the couch, tickling his sides until Ryan shrieks with laughter.

Brendon has never heard Ryan laugh like that.

It sounds young and childlike and carefree. Three things that Ryan had never really been.

“Oh come on Spence, every kid should be able to jump on a bed at least once.”

 

******************************************************************************

 

Pete comes to Vegas three days after the child sized version of Ryan Ross is found. They’ve been hoping to put him off until Ryan is full-sized again. Brendon supposes that not being able to get in touch with Ryan and then having all three other members of Panic hang up on him or dodge his calls had pretty much been Pete’s deciding factor to descend upon them unannounced.

He comes into the hotel room with no knock and Patrick and Joe trailing along behind him to find Brendon trying to teach Ryan how to play guitar.

If they were going to have to tour with an eight-year-old Ryan Ross they’d have to train him all over again.

Not that Brendon realistically thinks that there is any way they’re bringing this version of Ryan on the road with them, but he has to do something, and if he stops to think like Jon and Spencer are, he thinks that he might lose his mind.

Ryan is copying Brendon’s fingers and they’ve just successfully played the opening chords for Build God when Pete barges in.

“You all have got a lot of…” Brendon can figure out that exact second that Pete sees Ryan staring at him with large, wide eyes. “ _Holy. Fuck_.”

“Pete, language,” Patrick snaps.

Pete gets it, Brendon doesn’t know how. But the way that Pete’s mouth is opening and closing and all the color has drained from his face, Brendon _knows_ that _Pete_ knows who Ryan is.

“Brendon, we’re sorry. We didn’t know that you had a child in here and Pete was just concerned because none of you have been returning his phone calls or even answering your phones so…” Patrick pokes Pete in the side.

“Ryan?” Pete breathes, eyes almost impossibly wide. He looks sort of comical but there is no part of Brendon that feels up to laughing right at that moment.

Ryan just blinks at him. His fingers are still moving over the strings to the guitar and Ryan doesn’t know it but Brendon can hear the beginning strains of Tacks For Snacks.

“I don’t know you,” Ryan says.

Patrick stops, stares, squints at them like that will make the picture any clearer. Brendon could tell him that it won’t work.

Joe blinks and shakes his head.

“Dude is that a little Ryan Ross?”

 

******************************************************************************

 

“We don’t know how it happened,” Spencer says.

Again.

Through the door Brendon can hear the TV; he thinks they should be worried that they’re managing to turn an eight year old Ryan Ross into a couch potato.

“He’s eight,” Pete says.

Again.

Brendon lets his head fall and closes his eyes.

He’s tired of this conversation already and it doesn’t look anywhere near close to being done.

“Did you talk to his friends?” Pete asks. He manages to make it sound like an accusation. At least he isn’t yelling, every other conversation they’ve had since _those_ pictures of Ryan had shown up on the internet had devolved into yelling.

The tattoos are gone; _all_ of Ryan’s tattoos are gone. He’s smooth skin, no marks or scars. He’s a clean slate now and Brendon can’t figure out if there’s a point to all of this, let alone how it had happened in the first place.

“They haven’t talked to Ryan in a few days,” Jon says. He sounds tired. “They tried to call him that night and he didn’t answer.”

“That was probably because he was eight,” Joe says wisely. Brendon thinks he’s stoned but hasn’t figured out where and when he’s smoking up, when he finds out he’ll probably take the hit when offered.

He thinks this will all make much more sense if he were drugged.

 

******************************************************************************

 

It’s Spencer who decides that they need to take Ryan shopping.

“He’s been wearing that t-shirt for days, he needs some clothes that fit before someone decides to call child services,” Spencer announces.

Brendon doesn’t say that they haven’t let Ryan out of the hotel room since they snuck him into it in the first place, so no one would have any reason to call child services on them. He doesn’t say that because Spencer is about two days past his breaking point and Brendon doesn’t want to get yelled at again.

Brendon thinks they had all been waiting, and hoping that that Ryan would turn back and they wouldn’t need to worry about it. That he would miraculously wake up the right age and they could go back to being sort of miffed about the tattoo thing again.

Brendon and Jon go with him, because as much as Spencer is taking charge, if Ryan does anything that remotely reminds him of their _adult_ Ryan Spencer breaks down.

He’s a whirlwind in the store though, now that he has something besides a pint-sized Ryan to focus on. Ryan is all bright, wide eyes watching him, clutching at Jon’s hand.

Jon is the one elected to go into the dressing room with him, mostly because Ryan won’t let go of his hand. Spencer looks a little put out at that.

He quickly loses that look when they come back out and Jon looks like he’s fought a battle and just barely won, though Ryan is, finally, correctly attired in a pair of shorts and a plain blue t-shirt.

Pete is probably at the hotel making up child size shirts with bartskulls on them for Ryan to wear. For now though he looks like every other kid in the store save that he’s not wearing any shoes.

That’s where Spencer drags him next and it’s saying something about his focus that he only buys one pair of shoes for himself to the four that they manage to pick out for Ryan.

Ryan isn’t any help, but then adult Ryan had always refused to go shoe shopping with Spencer so that probably shouldn’t be as big a surprise to Brendon as it seems to be.

“I like the sneakers,” is all he says, he’s leaning into Brendon’s side and his eyes look heavy. He looks like he’s going to fall asleep at any second.

Brendon puts his arm around his shoulder and lays his cheek against Ryan’s head.

Spencer lets him have the sneakers, but sneaks in a pair of little black boots that lace up the front and zip up the sides and a pair of shiny black dress shoes. Jon drops a pair of flip flops on the top of the pile when they get to the register and the look that he shoots Spencer dares him to argue with him about them.

Spencer looks like he might like to, but instead he just sighs and hands over his credit card.

Ryan is visibly drooping, feet dragging and Jon swings him up in his arms like he weighs next to nothing and Ryan lays his head on his shoulder and watches as Spencer pays.

He’s asleep by the time they get to the parking lot.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Ryan throws a fit the next morning; it’s the first time that he’s really acted his age since they found him.

He screams and yells and tells them that they don’t like him anymore (which Spencer pales at), he stomps his little feet and his face turns bright red.

He looks scared.

By the time they manage to get to the door he’s steadfastly ignoring them, Brendon can see fragments of the adult that he’ll become again. Andy sits next to him on the couch and Brendon can see Spencer wavering, can see that if they dawdle any longer they’re going to have to explain away a child that looks exactly like Ryan Ross.

They’re answering enough awkward questions; he doesn’t want to be answering _that_ one as well.

He latches onto one of Spencer’s arms, Jon the other and they wave as they pull him out of the room, Andy waves them off with a roll of his eyes, Ryan doesn’t acknowledge them past crossing his arms over his chest and huffing angrily.

They have twenty-seven minutes to make their interview, where Brendon, Jon and Spencer will lie, lie, lie while Patrick and Pete watch to make sure that they don’t inadvertently tell everyone that ‘no they haven’t kicked Ryan out of the band, he’s just eight at the moment’.

They get asked questions about those pictures again and it’s the first time that Brendon is thankful that Ryan is eight, because Pete gets that look that means he wants to yell again and Ryan is not really a suitable outlet since he doesn’t have any clue who Pete is or why he would be mad at him.

Spencer explains, again, that it’s not the sign of a cult (they hope) that it’s just a bunch of friends (that don’t include them) that had all chosen to get the same tattoo.

Brendon can tell that the interviewer doesn’t believe them, if they don’t manage to get an adult Ryan Ross back so that he can sit in an interview with them the internet is going to go nuts with ‘they kicked Ryan out of the band’ rumors.

The interviewer is escorted out when he asks the same question four different ways, their answer doesn’t change but he’s looking annoyed nonetheless.

Pete looks completely fed up, Patrick is texting on his phone.

“Andy,” he says when Jon asks.

“Has Ryan stopped throwing a fit?” Spencer asks, he looks and sounds tired. For as bad as this for all of them, for Spencer it must be worse. He’s known Ryan the longest, been friends with him the longest, has been through all the stuff with Ryan’s dad with him.

They all miss Ryan, Spencer just misses him more.

“They’re watching cartoons,” Patrick says, he frowns and looks over at Spencer then away.

“What?” Spencer asks.

“Do we know when his relationship with his dad starting going… bad?” Patrick asks awkwardly, he’s not looking at Spencer.

“Why?” Spencer asks with narrowed eyes. Jon sits up straight and Brendon focuses on the conversation. Pete frowns a little.

“Just… he’s eight, shouldn’t he _want_ to be going home? _Want_ to see his parents?”

“Maybe he knows, you know, that things aren’t right… that there’s something wrong,” Jon offers. Spencer is silent, picking at his jeans.

“Still,” Patrick says.

“He was a teenager, we were in high school,” Spencer says softly. “He would have told me if it was sooner then that.”

“Maybe we should call his family, just to be on the safe side.”

 

******************************************************************************

 

They don’t call Ryan’s mom, Patrick makes a token protest, _if this were my son, I’d want to know what was going on._

Pete is the one that makes the decision.

“You want to be the one to explain it to her Patrick?” he asks and Patrick frowns, scowls then just looks resigned.

“What about Keltie?” he tries, “Wasn’t Ryan supposed to be flying out to meet up with her?”

“He was, he wanted to spend some time with Hobo before we went on tour,” Brendon says. He can hear the TV in the other room; he thinks that Andy has Ryan watching some documentary or something.

“Not Keltie?” Pete asks, there’s a strange tone to his voice that Brendon can’t place.

“She’s pissed about the tattoos, just like everyone else. They’ve been fighting on and off for a couple of weeks,” Spencer says.

Pete nods, Brendon thinks that he understands the anger thing; they’ve all been feeling it to various degrees over the last couple of weeks.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Keltie comes two days later. Brendon doesn’t know what Spencer told her to get her to come. He doesn’t think it was the truth.

Because Keltie has Hobo in her arms and overnight bag slung over her shoulder and she almost drops everything when she sees Ryan sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor staring avidly at the TV.

Pete has Bravo on, they’re in the middle of a Project Runway marathon and Ryan is entranced.

“Oh. My. God.” Keltie breathes it out and Jon plucks Hobo out of her arms, setting her on the floor. Keltie’s bag slides off her shoulder and lands with a load thunk on the floor.

Ryan looks over at them, eyes widening at the sight of a dog and he turns and comes to his knees as Hobo looks at him. She has her head cocked to the side, studying Ryan like she knows she should know him, finally she darts over, sniffs the hand that Ryan holds out in front of her then starts licking his face.

Ryan looks like he’s in heaven. He wraps his arms around her squirming body and buries his face in her side.

They hear a sob, heartbreakingly loud, muffled by Hobo and they all stand awkwardly around because which one of them has more rights to go to Ryan. To offer him comfort.

He doesn’t _know_ any of them.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Ryan and Hobo are curled up on the bed napping; Keltie hasn’t said a word since she walked into the hotel room. She also won’t look at Ryan at all.

Brendon would be worried but he thinks that’s a probably a pretty normal reaction to finding out your boyfriend is now eight and if you touch him you could go to jail.

“We’d talked about taking a break,” Keltie says softly. Brendon thinks he heard wrong, but knows he didn’t from the way that Spencer’s back stiffens, the way that Jon sits just a little bit straighter and Pete drops his phone and stares at her.

“He was supposed to be coming to get Hobo… I don’t…” she lowers her head, hands over her face. Her shoulders shake and Brendon can tell that she’s crying though she doesn’t make a sound.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Pete sends Keltie home but keeps Hobo with them; Brendon thinks it might be because of Ryan’s face when he thought that Hobo was leaving.

Resigned and stoic on an eight year-old is not something that Brendon wants to see ever again.

“We’re going back to LA tomorrow,” Pete announces. Spencer looks up sharply, Brendon can see that he wants to ask why Pete gets to make all the decisions. He doesn’t though.

“We can’t stay here, and we can’t keep Ryan cooped up in this room forever. Eventually he’s going to have to leave the room and someone is going to see him and then we’ll be answering _other_ , awkward questions,” Patrick says, explains. It sounds better to Brendon’s ears to hear it coming from Patrick then Pete.

Pete nods his agreement and goes and sits on the couch.

“We’ve already got the awkward cult tattoo questions, we don’t need the awkward at what age did Ryan Ross start having sex questions added to it.”

 

******************************************************************************

 

Ryan loves the private plane, once they’re in the air, even though it’s only a little over an hour flight he darts from window to window and is entranced by the clouds and the sky.

His eyes are wide and bright.

He looks happy and pleased and like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

No one has the heart to tell him that he should remain seated with his seat belt securely fastened and when it’s time to land its not Jon but Pete who pulls him into his lap, wraps his arms around Ryan’s chest. Two dark heads look out the windows as they descend through the clouds.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Jon is carrying him when they get out of the car; Ryan has fallen asleep in the limo on the way from the private landing strip to Pete’s house. Brendon has Hobo and Spencer, Patrick, Joe and Andy are trying to get everyone’s luggage inside in one trip.

Pete has his phone pressed to one ear even as he keys the alarm off and opens the door.

He stops dead and Jon right behind him does as well.

“Pete,” he hisses. Ryan makes a noise and his head rises from Jon’s shoulder. “Shhh,” Jon murmurs, “its okay,” he says, he touches the back of Ryan’s head and tries to coax him back to sleep.

“Where the _hell_ have you been?” Ashlee’s voice is shrill and angry. Pete steps aside and lets Jon carry Ryan in, lets the others walk past.

“First door on the right,” Pete gestures to the stairs, Jon looks back and forth between Pete and Ashlee and looks like he wants to say something.

Ashlee is staring at Ryan in Jon’s arms and this miniature version of Ryan can sense when someone is staring at him just like the older version could. His head raises from where Jon had managed to coax it back down; he turns and blinks sleepily at Ashlee.

Much like Pete, Ashlee gets it, faster then the rest of them. Brendon thinks that maybe the rest of them just couldn’t believe that something like this could happen. Her hand flies to her mouth to cover her gasp and Ryan yawns and lays his head back down on Jon’s shoulder.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Ashlee is sitting very still on the couch; her eyes haven’t left Pete’s since they walked into the living room and sat down on opposites sides of the room.

The rest of them are silent. Patrick is fixing drinks and Joe has found a bag of chips somewhere and is eating them slowly, looking back and forth between them.

They don’t even look away from each other when Jon walks in. Patrick hands him a drink and Jon empties the glass in one swallow and hands it back.

“Ryan and Hobo are asleep,” he announces. Ashlee jerks and makes a tiny sound in the back of her throat.

“I called somebody who might be able to help,” Pete says abruptly. “A guy I know, I haven’t seen him in a while, but… he might be able to help.”

“You’re going to let this guy touch Ryan, see him like he is now,” Ashlee says. Her voice is hard, quiet… protective.

Brendon doesn’t understand.

Because Ashlee doesn’t typically get along with Ryan, they’re two people that have two different parts of Pete and neither one of them likes to share him.

Ashlee doesn’t get along with anybody that used to have a part of Pete.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Pete doesn’t know when this ‘guy’ is going to arrive.

“His name is Dean… he’s,” Pete shrugs. “He marches to the beat of his own drum, Ryan will probably like him. He gets along really well with kids.”

Brendon doesn’t ask how Pete knows that. Sometimes there are things that they’re just better of not knowing.

They go to bed because there’s really nothing else for them to do but wait.

Spencer sleeps in the chair in the spare bedroom that Ryan is in. Brendon and Jon curled up in sleeping bags on the floor.

It would be a slumber party, they did this once up in the cabin. The four of them curled up on the floor in front of the fireplace, they had told ghost stories and laughed and talked until morning.

Spencer had made omelets and they’d gotten absolutely nothing done that day.

Brendon gets up once to take Hobo out, Jon takes her the next time. Each time she comes back and jumps up on the bed where she curls up in a ball and Ryan curls back around her.

When they get up in the morning Pete is energized, Dean had called him back in the early hours of the morning, he’s on his way to see if he can help, Brendon wonders what Pete has told him to get him to come, he doesn’t think that he blurted out that one of the guys in one of the bands on his label has lost something like 13 years.

Then he decides that as long as this Dean person can do something to make Ryan an adult again he doesn’t care.

Ryan is playing in the back yard when they arrive, it’s late in the day and he’s tossing a stick for Hobo, Hemmy watching from a safe distance away.

Ryan is laughing and scratches Hobo under the chin and calls her a good dog every time she brings it back.

The doorbell rings and Pete gets it. Ashlee is still there but she hasn’t said two words and Pete won’t look at her. Brendon thinks they might have had a fight after they all went to bed and hopes that Ashlee doesn’t take her anger at Pete out on the eight year old Ryan Ross that Pete has brought home with him.

The rest of them can take care of themselves, ignoring Ashlee is easy, but Ryan is young and sweet in ways that he’d never been before. He has none of the barriers that the older version of him will have eventually.

Pete comes back into the kitchen and there are two guys with him instead of just the one that Pete had mentioned. He thinks Dean is probably the one that Pete is touching an awful lot.

The other one looks out the window and sees Ryan running in the backyard.

“Holy. Fuck.”

 

******************************************************************************

 

Dean introduces his brother Sam, while Pete’s latched onto him, arms and legs both. Sam looks a little surprised by the fact that Pete is hugging Dean, or maybe because Dean is allowing it. Brendon would tell him that Pete is just that touch feely with people, but he thinks that maybe Sam is figuring that out for himself.

Dean manages to extricate himself from Pete’s grip when Jon brings Ryan in, Hobo trotting along beside him. Jon stands behind him, hands on Ryan’s shoulder while Pete introduces Ryan to Dean and Sam.

Ryan bites his lip and looks up at them warily. Brendon thinks that maybe being the only child surrounded by adults is getting to him.

Dean seems to understand and comes down to his knees, he’s almost the same height as Ryan like that and Ryan leans into Jon’s legs but doesn’t look so wary anymore.

“Hi there Ryan,” Dean says, he holds out his hand and Ryan looks at it for a second, eyes darting between his hand and Dean’s face and finally reaches his own out. They shake hands solemnly.

Dean’s lips move but Brendon can’t hear what he’s saying. He doesn’t think it’s anything bad because Ryan just blinks at him, little hand still engulfed in Dean’s larger one.

“Huh,” Dean says, he releases Ryan’s hand and sits back on his heels.

“Not that easy huh?” Pete asks, Dean looks over at him and smirks. The two exchange a look that Brendon can’t read.

“You’re a big rock star now, you might be out of practice, I had to try,” Dean says. Pete rolls his eyes and Ashlee makes a noise like a huff. “Aww sweetheart, don’t be like that,” Dean says, focusing on her. His voice is all silky smooth and trying to be charming, Brendon thinks that normally he would succeed, but he also thinks that Dean doesn’t want to.

He gets the impression that Dean doesn’t like Ashlee in the least, which he would totally get if Dean even _knew_ her. To draw judgment when he’s only just met her, Brendon _doesn’t_ understand that.

“This is going to take some work,” Dean says, he exchanges another unreadable look with Pete and then glances over his shoulder at Sam.

“I guess I’ll get our stuff from the car then,” Sam says, Dean doesn’t move to go help his brother, just turns to look at Ryan again.

Brendon wonders if someone is going to explain what is going on to those of them that don’t seem to have a clue.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Brendon isn’t sure how Pete gets Ashlee to leave.

But when he gathers them all together in the living room hours later, Ashlee is nowhere to be found.

“A bible-thumper,” Dean shakes his head. “You sure know how to pick them.”

“She’s not a bible-thumper,” Pete says tiredly. They sound like they’ve been having this exact, same argument for a while.

“No but her daddy is, and you can’t tell me that the apple falls that fucking far from the tree.”

“Can we get sort of on topic here?” Sam asks.

“Sure Sammy,” Dean says, he flops down in an armchair, legs spread, hands on the arms.

“So?” Pete asks. Dean and Sam exchange a look, Brendon wishes he knew them better because he’s pretty sure that they’re having an entire conversation just in the twitches of their eyebrows and the curve of their mouths.

“Spell,” Sam says decisively. “It’s really the only thing that it can be. It’s a powerful one and it wasn’t cast by him because there’d be some sort of spell residue and there’s nothing.”

“Are you talking like witchcraft spells?” Spencer asks. His tone and face suggest that if that is what they’re thinking that they should reevaluate the thought.

Dean just grins at him.

“Yep, know anyone that would want to cause your friend harm that way?”

 

******************************************************************************

 

A girl named Ruby shows up a day later.

Dean and Sam and Pete have been doing some weird stuff with herbs, they’ve painted a few symbols on the floors in front of the main entrances.

The girl shows up and gets trapped in the one by the door. That’s maybe when Spencer starts believing in the crazy talk that Dean and Sam and Pete have been uttering, Brendon decides.

She’s seething mad when Dean shows up; Sam and Pete are on the second floor doing something that involves a lot of loud chanting.

“Well hi there sweetheart,” Dean says, all lazy smiles. His eyes don’t look pleasant, he doesn’t appear to like this girl but there must be some level of trust because he scratches through the symbol that Sam had applied to the floor with painstaking precision with the blade of his knife.

“I’m getting really tired of getting trapped in your little symbols, was this _your_ bright idea?” she asks angrily, she brushes her hair away from her face and scowls.

“Naw, totally Sam. Again. Said that since we were going to be here a while that we might as well be all safe from demons and such.”

Spencer and Jon are entranced by this girl; Brendon leans against the doorway and watches.

“This is Ruby,” Dean says, he doesn’t look away from her. “She’s not human so make sure your pants stay all zipped up around her.”

Ruby’s eyes go even darker at that. “Where’s this boy that Sam wants me to take a look at?”

Ryan appears on the landing then, rubbing his eyes. He sleeps a lot, more then the adult version ever had.

Ruby stares at him, Dean stops her with a hand on her arm when she goes to move toward him.

“I don’t think so,” he says.

She rolls her eyes at him. “I’m not going to hurt him; I couldn’t anyway, not if we want to win.” She stares at Ryan and he stares back at her, blinking slowly.

Dean makes a querying noise and she smiles slowly, Dean’s eyes narrow.

“I didn’t think there were anymore like your brother left.”

 

******************************************************************************

 

Sam and Pete appear at the top of the stairs when Dean starts yelling for his brother.

“Ruby, I thought you were a couple of days out,” Sam says, starting down the stairs. Pete stays at the top, resting a hand on Ryan’s shoulder and Ryan leans into his side.

His eyes don’t leave Ruby, Brendon notes.

“She says that Ryan is one of the special ed kids,” Dean says, Sam stops dead two steps from the bottom.

“What?”

“You don’t _feel_ it?” Ruby asks, she sounds positively gleeful. Sam makes a noise and Ruby rolls her eyes, she bats Dean’s hand away and takes a step toward the stairs.

Spencer and Jon both move to intercept her.

“Feel what?” Sam asks, he’s looking back and forth between Ruby and Ryan, though his eyes linger on Ryan longer and longer each time.

“I didn’t think any of you manifested until you were in your twenties, but he’s leaking power all over the place,” she finally looks away from Ryan and focuses on Spencer and Jon instead. “What was his power?”

“Power?” Spencer asks. He’s scowling.

“Power, gift, ability,” she rolls her eyes again, Brendon wonders if she ever gets tired of it, if her eyes hurt because she rolls them too much in one day. “What can he _do_?”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Spencer says coldly.

Ryan starts down the stairs then, brushing Pete’s hand off his shoulder when he attempts to stop him. He’s still staring at Ruby and he walks slowly, carefully down each step.

He stops next to Sam, and the two of them stare at Ruby together. Ruby is smiling and Brendon can practically see her forming plans in her mind. He doesn’t have any clue what’s going on, but he’s pretty sure that he doesn’t like where this conversation is apparently heading.

“Unless his power is the ability to de-age himself 13 years, I’m pretty sure he’s not going to be useful in a fight against Lilith,” Sam says, Sam’s arm goes over Ryan’s shoulder.

“What?”

“This is Ryan,” Sam says. “Regardless of what he looks like, he’s actually 21 years old.”

From the expression that crosses Sam’s face he didn’t expect that to make Ruby even happier.

“Perfect,” Ruby says. Her teeth are really white, Brendon wonders if she whitens. “Absolutely perfect.”

 

******************************************************************************

 

“We’re not sending an eight year old boy into battle with Lilith,” Dean snarls.

Pete’s teeth are bared and Brendon isn’t sure but he’s almost positive he’s heard him growl a couple of times, he hasn’t let Ryan move more then three inches from him since they moved into the living room. Spencer is on Ryan’s other side, hand wrapped around his arm. Jon is standing sentry behind him and Patrick is standing at the door.

If Ruby tries to take Ryan from the room she’ll have a fight on her hands. Patrick, at least, is vicious when he wants to be.

Brendon feels like he should be doing something, like guarding the windows or something. But he has this feeling that if Ruby wanted to take Ryan that there was nothing any of them could do to stop her.

“We don’t even know if he has any powers,” Sam says reasonably.

“Look, I know this is your first time around the block,” Ruby says. “But there is no way that boy is leaking the power that he’s leaking and doesn’t have at least _one_ gift to back it up.”

“If he even had an ability, he sure as hell doesn’t _remember_ what it was now,” Dean states. His voice is cold and hard.

“He doesn’t need to remember now, he’ll remember when he needs to,” Ruby argues.

“Is it important?” Ryan asks. He sounds bored, tired.

“What?” Dean turns and looks at him, Pete has one hand wrapped around his wrist, Spencer’s hand is still locked around in his arm, they both have to be hurting him but Ryan isn’t complaining.

“Is what she wants me to do important?” he asks patiently.

“I want you to save the world,” Ruby says, Sam makes a noise. “With Sam’s help of course.” Dean snorts, “And Dean’s, though Dean will probably die, you shouldn’t worry about that.”

Ryan stares at her and Brendon knows the older version of Ryan well enough to recognize the expression on this younger version of him. He’s judging her; older Ryan had always been amazingly good at that. He could take one look at a person and tell you if they were a good person or a bad person.

As far as Brendon knows he has never been wrong in an assessment.

“There’s a girl in my dreams,” he says. “She’s my age, maybe a little younger. She wants to hurt me,” Ryan says, he looks over at Sam, cocks his head to the side. “She wants to hurt you too. She _really_ wants to hurt you.”

“Does she know what you look like?” Ruby asks, her eyes are serious and focused. Spencer is sheet white.

Ryan shakes his head.

“Did she know what you looked like _before_?” Ruby asks. Ryan smiles at her, a tiny smile, no teeth.

“Oh,” she breathes. “Oh, this is perfect.”

“Ruby?” Sam asks.

“He did it to himself, he knew that she knew who he was. So he changed himself, made it impossible for her to track him. He probably didn’t take into consideration the fact that he wouldn’t be able to masks his abilities, but maybe he didn’t want to. Without his abilities he’s useless and defenseless and he can’t fulfill his part of his mission.”

“Mission?” Dean asks slowly, Brendon can tell that he already knows the answer, that he doesn’t like it.

“There’s only one reason that he wasn’t knocked off when the rest of the ones like Sam had their big ‘last one standing leads the army’ fight,” Ruby says slowly. Her eyes don’t move away from Ryan’s and Ryan is leaning into Spencer’s side watching her. “He wasn’t called to that fight; Azrael left him exactly where he was. So that has to mean that he was put here for some _other_ reason. The only other reason that could be is if Azrael was hedging his bets in case something went wrong, he left Ryan where he was and made sure that Sam wouldn’t be alone. He _has_ to be our means to actually destroy Lilith.”

 

******************************************************************************

 

Sam and Ruby disappear with Ryan three days later.

They’ve been arguing for days, Sam and Ruby for, Dean and Pete against. The rest of them against as well.

Ryan just leans into Spencer and Jon’s sides, cuddles with Brendon on the couch. It would feel like something entirely normal if he wasn’t half the size of their Ryan. If Brendon wasn’t afraid to talk to him.

Pete and Dean are livid when they find out. Dean is even angrier when he finds out that they took his car.

Brendon supposes that they got tired of arguing about it, he’s also pretty sure that Ryan went with them willingly.

If he hadn’t wanted to go he would have woken the rest of them with the subsequent temper tantrum.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Dean is attempting to track Sam and Ruby through other hunters. Or he would be if anyone had seen them.

He doesn’t think that they’re hiding; Ruby at least has got to be broadcasting the fact that they have the means to destroy Lilith from the rooftops. Sam will be a little quieter, Dean hopes that he knows that when they return (with Ryan either an adult again or still a child and safely in tow) that Dean is punching him.

“When they come back, I’m killing him, just so you know,” Pete says. He’s pissed off, angry. He doesn’t mean it, though Dean thinks that he probably really wants to.

“Did you know?” Dean asks. He’s been meaning to for a while.

“About Ryan?” Pete laughs softly, it sounds bitter. “Not until a while after I met him. He’s… there’s stuff in his past, with his father, he doesn’t volunteer any more information about anything unless he’s absolutely sure of which side of the playing field you fall on.”

“Did you know what his ability was?”

“Besides, apparently, the fact that he can turn himself into an eight year old at will?”

Dean laughs, it sounds bitter, even to his ears.

“No, I never saw him do anything that you said you saw the other kids do. I just knew there was something different about him.”

“He could tell upon sight whether you were a good or bad person,” Brendon offers. He’s been largely silent from where he’s curled up on the couch. It’s why Dean keeps forgetting that he’s there, the others are somewhere around Pete’s big house, from the concerned looks that Pete keeps shooting at him the quietness is not normal.

Brendon keeps looking out the window, like he’s expecting Ryan and Ruby and Sam to return at any time. Like they just went out for ice cream instead of went gallivanting off to try and save the world.

It’s like a bad joke.

A Demon, A Hunter and an eight year old boy walk into a bar…

“That’s not an active gift,” Dean says.

He’s not worried about Ryan, he refuses to be. Sam will take care of the boy for no other reason then if he survives and Ryan doesn’t there will be a line starting with Pete to kill or maim him.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Two days later the power goes out, the sky goes black. Dean cradles his shotgun in his hand and moves from window to window.

Pete has a gun that he’s taken from a box in the back of his closet, Patrick had watched him take it out, watched him load it and aim it and Brendon knew that he wanted to say something. Could see Patrick biting his tongue to _keep_ from saying anything.

Andy and Joe descend upon the house two hours after it starts.

There is a fierce wind and Pete makes them drink Holy Water and Dean utters a few incantations.

When they don’t dissolve into smoke or go screaming into the night they’re allowed into the rest of the house.

It lasts for sixteen hours; Pete has a radio that they keep on, Jon tuning and retuning stations as they lose them trying to find out any information about what is happening.

Sixteen hours after night descends, the wind stops, the sun comes up and the power comes back on.

The radio keeps talking about an eclipse of some sort though Brendon is pretty sure that isn’t what happened.

Dean and Pete don’t say anything to contradict it; they just seem pleased that the sun came back up.

“It could have been a lot worse,” Dean says. “It could still be dark and hell could be roaming free on Earth.”

“You’re talking End of Days stuff,” Brendon says. He’s not religious, not anymore, but he can’t forget the things that he spent years learning.

“Not End of Days, that’s not for a couple more years. This was just a break out attempt,” Pete says.

Nobody calls. There is no phone call from Sam telling them that everything is okay, not a peep from Ryan, either the young or normal sized version.

They wait and wait and a day after the sun comes back up and Andy is contemplating firing up the grill in the back yard that Pete owns but is not allowed to use, they return.

There is no knock on the door, no sound at all to alert them to their return. The only reason anyone even looks out the front door is because Hobo is continuously pacing in front of it and whining.

Jon finally opens it in the hopes that if he shows Hobo that there is nothing that there that she’ll calm down; instead he ends up yelling for Pete and Dean and flying out the door after Hobo.

They all come running at the panic in his voice.

Sam is sitting on the first step, cradled in his arms is the still eight year old version of Ryan. They both appear to be asleep. They look like they’ve been through hell and back.

They’re covered in bloody gashes and a black powder.

Dean kneels in front of Sam, touches his arm gently and Sam startles, jumps, eyes blinking open.

“Dean,” he slurs. He sounds past exhausted. Ryan’s eyes open a crack and Jon snatches him out of Sam’s arms, deposits him in Spencer’s then wraps his arms around both of them tightly.

Brendon joins them when Jon looks over.

Ryan’s head is on Spencer’s shoulder; Brendon thinks that he’s gone back to sleep.

Nobody moves, no one says a word.

Brendon wonders if they should start putting together the statement about eight year old Ryan Ross and why Panic will no longer be performing.

 

******************************************************************************

 

“He’ll turn back when he’s ready,” Sam says, he doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t tell them anything of what has happened to them since they left Pete’s. He won’t even tell Dean what happened to his car.

They both sleep a lot. Ryan curled up on a bed in one room, Sam in another. Hobo stands guard over Ryan, sleeping by his feet.

At night the rest of them join them, the bed is big enough, they all curl up together on it.

“What are we going to do if he doesn’t change back?” Brendon asks one night, its dark in the room, he can’t see anything. But he can feel Jon’s hand wrap around his ankle and squeeze, can hear Ryan’s even breaths, can hear Spencer sigh.

“He’ll change back,” Spencer says. There’s a surety in his voice that makes Brendon relax a little, if Spencer is sure then it’ll happen.

Sometime.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Brendon wakes up when he falls off the bed, he rubs his head and is preparing to make a fuss when he stands up and sees Ryan.

He’s still in the center of the bed, still sleeping.

He’s not an eight year old kid anymore.

“Spencer,” Brendon hisses. He’s trying to be quiet, he really is.

Ryan isn’t a sound sleeper though; a pin dropping in the room would wake him up.

“Oh my god Brendon,” he mumbles, his head lifts from the pillow, the marks that were on his eight year old self are still on his face, his face is still bruised. Brendon can’t see the rest of his body, but he’s sure that the gashes and bruises that had adorned his skin are still there, he wonders if his tattoos have returned as well.

Ryan’s head raises and he peers over at the window, he doesn’t seem confused as to why Spencer is curled up at his back, hand on his waist, or why Jon is sleeping by his feet, when the last that this version of Ryan would have known was that they were angry at him.

“The sun isn’t even up yet,” Ryan states, his head flops back down and his eyes close.

“Ryan…” Brendon starts.

“I don’t want to talk about it Brendon,” Ryan says. His voice says that arguing with him about this would be futile. “I may never want to talk about it, ever.”

Brendon runs a hand through his hair, stares down at where Ryan appears to be going back to sleep, or attempting a realistic impression of it.

He sits on the corner of the bed, Hobo squirming up between them had been what had pushed him off the bed, where it was a tight fit for three adult males, an eight year old boy and a dog, four adult males and a dog had been a little too much.

He lies back down carefully on his side, touches Ryan’s arm and shares his pillow. A small smile is on Ryan’s face, he’s relaxed.

Brendon closes his eyes, the room feels right, and he can breathe evenly.

Brendon sleeps.


End file.
